Abstraction of the sense of place and the history of materials can be found in the spare, geometric jewellery of Giampaolo Babetto. Born and working in the midst of the Veneto, he draws upon its classical architectural language of Palladian proportion in the design of his uncompromisingly geometric works for the body. His precise and measured use of gold as a primary structural material for his jewellery honours the intensity of this ancient material with lyricism and delicacy, while his use of intense pigments and ancient colouring techniques, such as niello, give thecoloured and black planes in his works a physicality that no paint can achieve. Babetto’s use of materials with such concentrated richness and sense of time locates us in the continuum of Italian art, craft and architecture from the Renaissance to the present.